DC Direct Mon El Review

December has inadvertently turned into action figure month here at Analog so I thought I’d continue the theme with this week’s arrival of the New Krypton figures from DC Direct. If you have been reading this blog you might believe that I have suddenly made the jump completely over to the dark side that is Mattel from DC Direct but that is not quite the case.

“I’ll never join you!”

Okay a bit dramatic young Luke, however this release proves DC Direct can still put out great figures when they put their minds to it. The character selection is really where they are lagging behind Mattel lately. If it’s outside of the Green Lantern title, DC Direct is not making it right now. This release breaks that trend and gives us some great Superman related figures but as usually there are a few minor problems that keep them from being prefect that we will discuss. I didn’t purchase the entire wave because this was a storyline I didn’t care for but it did provide me with one figure I needed for my current JLA display that being Mon El and one whose costume design I simply loved of Superwoman. Today’s review will be a look at the first figure of Mon El so let’s get right to it.

As I mentioned I didn’t read the New Krypton storyline mostly because I wasn’t interested in another Superman is off of Earth storyline. I basically viewed this story as another excuse to have Superman out of play again for awhile that I feel has been over done lately with this storyline, the weekly 52 series and the current walk across America. I feel Superman has been off stage so long I’ve almost forgotten what it is like to have him center stage and interacting with other heroes. The Justice League title has suffered the most without him, Batman and Wonder Woman and I’ve been planning a blog on why JLA isn’t working for me right now that I will discuss later. Since I’ve mentioned the Justice League I thought I’d discuss why I felt it necessary to buy the Mon El figure. At the time these figures were announced it appeared that Mon El was going to be Superman’s fill in James Robinson’s version of the League. However this turned out not to be the case since the lineup from the Cry for Justice did not stay intact. James Robinson decided that he didn’t want to work with that large of cast. Editorial (likely Dan Didio) also decided that Mon El was needed in the newly launched Legion of Superheroes books so he quickly found himself in the Phantom Zone to be found in the future again.

This left me with a less than enthusiastic viewpoint to the arrival of this figure that I had ordered. These figures were also very late in arriving from China and only just arrived in stores this week. I was even considering not buying this figure even though I had ordered it but I hate doing that because it sticks my store with a figure they thought was sold. While you might think that they would be able to move it eventually, I know for a fact that only myself and one other customer are the only regular buyers of action figures. I was pleasantly surprised to be happy with Mon El when I got to the store. The one other thing that made me unsure about the purchase of the figure was the head sculpt in the solicitations. I didn’t feel that it was very accurate to the way he should look and frankly I didn’t think it was that good. I have posted a picture from that early solicit and a close up of the actual head sculpt we got. It’s hard to tell from the photos whether they changed it or not but to me it a lot better. I’m not sure it is a dead on likeness to the comics but it was a good enough for me to feel happy with it and make the purchase.

I have to say this is a pretty good figure overall but there is one problem that we will get to in moment. I have a tendency to look at figure different than most other people due to my customizing so I’ll discuss some of the strengths of it related to that. The body is excellent sculpt and appears to be a completely new one that looks muscular but not overly so. I think is captures the fitness you would expect from a superhero without going overboard as sometimes happens with Superman figures. Sculptors have a tendency to make Superman overly musculature with a steroid like appearance to convey that he is the most powerful being in the universe. Whoever did this figure avoided this trap and gave us an appropriately proportioned body. This figure should be a boon to customizers since it will provide a good blank body that can be altered with little effort. One of my many quirks when I working on my Justice Society customs was I didn’t want to use the same male body over and over again. I wanted the figures to look like separate sculpts so I constantly sought different body types to pull this off. It is easier to just find a good blank body and reuse it but the downfall is all the figures look alike even if painted differently. This figure will get a lot of additional life since the only thing you have to do is removed the cape and you are ready to start customizing him into another character.

There is one slight flaw with this figure that I feel I need to mention and it is one that has developed lately. DC Direct has chosen to go with a dynamic sculpt on the cape that makes it appear wind blown and creates a nice effect. Unfortunately the side effect of this decision is that they have again created a cape that is too heavy for the figure to support. This plagued them in History of the DCU line as I found out in the Martian Manhunter review and also affected the Batman of the line that I passed on. The problem isn’t quite as severe here but I was still unable to get the figure to stand up. If you take a look at the pictures of Mon El you will notice that you must have him bend slightly forward to hold the weight of the cape and stand without falling over. It not a major problem but is symptomatic of DC Direct’s lack of detail on the production end of their figures. These issues should simply not happen but they constantly keep occurring. The quality control on DC Direct has always been suspect and I wish they had someone who would stay on top of these issues more.

Let’s move on from this minor issue and get to the comparison shots of Mon El with some different Supermen figures. To be sure there were plenty of figures to choose from to match up Mon El but I tried to limit them to ones that make sense and more current selections. That being said I think it is necessary to include a shot with highly articulated Superman figure. This figure was SUPPOSED to be the baseline figure for the current scale of the DC Direct line. As you can see DC Direct has long forgotten that proclamation by head man Georg Brewer since Mon El is taller than this Superman. The current scale is about 6.75 inches that Mon El represents as opposed to old 6.5 inches of our Superman here. Although I believe this Superman to be the Best that DC Direct has done to date, it is still not the Superman I would choose to display Mon El with.

The Benes Superman from the recent Justice League series is one good candidate for matching up with Mon El. The scale on these is perfect but I’ve never been fond of the head sculpt on that figure. If you look at the close up of the Benes you will see that he look kind of like he’s had too much lemonade and is slightly puckered up in my opinion. I think the neck sticks out a little too much on the sides also which also ruins this figure for me. I think the body is well done but the head just destroys the look for me. I think that I have found finally a solution for this with a figure from this wave. If you look at the picture from the solicits that I included of the Kal El figure, you find that it has a much better head. I’m considering buying that figure and swapping the heads with this one to fix this. I’ll probably wait until it is marked down to do this though. The other thing I will add about the Kal El figure is if you look at it closely for long enough you may find yourself looking at a young Chris Reeve. Maybe I’m projecting here but this is the closest thing DC Direct has done to producing a head on a Superman that looks like the late actor.

Next I think is the best Superman figure to use in the display with Mon El. The Ethan Van Sciver Superman from the Superman/Batman series looks great with Mon El. The styles are a good fit ands the scale seems to mesh. My only problem with this is that this is one of those overly steroidal versions of Superman I mentioned earlier. I just don’t think Superman should be that bulked up. It still makes a great partner for Mon El.

I’ll include two photos next that are obviously bad fits. The Silver Age Superman is too small since it is six inches in scale. These two just don’t work together which is a shame.

Finally I’ll finish with the Silver Age Superboy figure that is dwarfed by the new Mon El. There is really not much else to say except that these two will never be in any Legion of Superheroes display.

In closing the Mon EL figure is a solid release from DC Direct that was way better than I was anticipating. The cape issue is more annoying than anything else and I will happily put in the Cry for Justice version of the League and call it a day. I included a shot of Robinson League that I am working on and I think it is coming along pretty well so far. Fans of this character should be pleased with this release and I would recommend you pick it up if you are on the fence.



Comments

[Anon]

Hi, this may be a little off-topic but I was thinking of picking that Superman figure from the Justice League America (Benes). And I was wondering if this figure had a yellow superman shield on the cape at the back?

Thank you! Great review btw, might check these figures out soon.

[Mike Wendler]

Yes, the Benes figure has the yellow shield on the back of the cape.